GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 4550 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, which features core clock speeds of 600 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4550 256MB		25 Watts
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (180%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (325%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is a lot (approximately 267%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		4800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (267%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be a lot (about 83%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4550 256MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4550 256MB		2400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (83%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.